JohannaOlsonhttp://writing.johannaolson.ca
This is my writing siteFri, 20 Oct 2017 23:59:27 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.3Competition Cementhttp://writing.johannaolson.ca/2017/10/20/competition-cement/
http://writing.johannaolson.ca/2017/10/20/competition-cement/#respondFri, 20 Oct 2017 23:59:27 +0000https://ungenerous-societie.000webhostapp.com/?p=116Somewhere in the deep end of my mental processes is a cement layer devotion to competition. Only on top of it can any other currents flow. I don’t know when I laid it or how I willed it to be done, but I am beginning to recognize its solid presence and its interference. It has imprints of insecurity and fear where the “do not walk” sign was obviously ignored and some slight cracks from nights of stomping. I vaguely remember the battles that danced around it and gave it its character. It holds the weight of my steps, so I can’t hate it. Yet, I’m starting to notice it hasn’t taken me anywhere. I find myself sitting on its curbside, a bit stuck. As if its cement never quite dried and once I sat, I’ve never been able to move.
]]>http://writing.johannaolson.ca/2017/10/20/competition-cement/feed/0Press Playhttp://writing.johannaolson.ca/2017/03/31/press-play/
http://writing.johannaolson.ca/2017/03/31/press-play/#respondFri, 31 Mar 2017 23:05:01 +0000https://ungenerous-societie.000webhostapp.com/?p=87Originally posted over here.

Since the release of my album, I have had so many people congratulate me and say nice things about how proud they are of me or simply acknowledging the amount of work involved in releasing an album. It’s such a funny feeling to have that conversation over and over again because it’s not like we’re sitting around a table, chatting about a meal that we’ve all just enjoyed. Having people engage with my album is not very tangible in the sense that I am not a part of their experience listening to my album. When they chat with me about it, it’s not while either of us are listening to the music or experiencingits effects or even staring at the .wav files. It’s such a strange, disconnected experience. When referring to “my album” it’s like referring to some hypothetical, cloud of a product that’s somewhere, ambiguouslyout there. Making it seem as if people are congratulating me on an idea that has no matter and fills no firm place in time.

The strangest feeling is the sense of it being a “finished” but “just begun” kind of product. I’m done my work – it’s out there, ready for listeners to consume, But I cannot say when or if anyone will consume it, so it’s still very much in process in terms of its ability to influence or have value to anyone but myself.

No physical CD copies exist, I have received no payment for any downloads, no iTunes ratings, no Grammy, no record deal, no Q interview. It has yet to produce fruit. So far, it just exists… At the end of an iTunes search. Attached to a handwritten download code. Paused in time, waiting for someone to hit that little play button on their keyboard and bring it into reality… waiting for someone to give it space and time.

I can feel, at the back of my little creative heart, a rising plea that someone would just: “let me out; allow me to exist”.

And it’s got me thinking about when things come alive. What else is standing still in the universe, waiting for someone to press play?

All of these products went into their respective glass jars as one creation and will come out as something completely different and exactly the same.

I love that.

I like to be reminded that there is life in inconspicuous places.

]]>http://writing.johannaolson.ca/2016/10/30/fermentation-1/feed/0Chasing the Cloudhttp://writing.johannaolson.ca/2016/10/22/a-letter-to-the-cloud/
http://writing.johannaolson.ca/2016/10/22/a-letter-to-the-cloud/#respondSat, 22 Oct 2016 20:07:55 +0000https://ungenerous-societie.000webhostapp.com/?p=76I’m afraid of losing you.
I’m afraid of how good it feels when you’re around and how hard it is to find you.
I’m afraid that you’ll leave again and I’ll labour with hands and words and reddened faces to find you;
to speak to you;
to manufacture you,
but you won’t be there.
I’ve been trying to find breath for so long.

Trying to breathe deeply for so long, but the air keeps getting stuck in that part of my chest right before it hits the throat.
It’s too far down to pull out. My mind wants to think it away.
To create something else so I won’t be disappointed.
I can’t though. I’m disappointed without. I can’t not be disappointed.
I still hope, I still want for, I still wax poetic.
You’re still on my lips even when you’re far from my breath.
But please, oh please, just stay near me.
Be in my lungs and the rush out of my mouth.
Be the coating of my words and the penning of my hands.
Do the things and say the things that I don’t even understand; that I can’t even think or fathom.
Be better for me than I am for myself.
Be for my own good.

Please don’t rise from the weight you carry right now.
On my chest, on my eyelids, on my shoulders.
The weight telling me to stay seated. To take another moment. To take another drink.
The internal/external working & reworking of weight + weightlessness.
The ok-ing of all my thoughts and all my images.
The positive self-talk that is transforming my lenses.

]]>http://writing.johannaolson.ca/2016/10/22/a-letter-to-the-cloud/feed/0Wednesdayhttp://writing.johannaolson.ca/2016/10/19/67/
http://writing.johannaolson.ca/2016/10/19/67/#respondWed, 19 Oct 2016 07:19:18 +0000https://ungenerous-societie.000webhostapp.com/?p=67It’s early in the morning on this random Wednesday day and I’m feeling pretty ok as I think about the hours of pretty non-ok that I’ve felt in the last few days.

Moments, emails & conversations from earlier this week left me with the desire to flee & quit. My pain from the hurts of people around me have demanded all my energy and I’ve been throbbing my way through the past few days.

This morning I watched an interview with Brene Brown where she made a comment that the people who can handle the most amount of discomfort rise to the top the quickest. My dad has said a similar thing… that the defining attribute of people of influence is their ability to handle pain.

So the desires to quit, re-route, and ignore taunt me. They tell me that enduring the beating is the only way I’m going to find the path that I’ve longed to travel on. But I wonder if there will be anything left of me if I do this. Is the bruised, wrinkled person, with all the mementos, the triumphant one or is she the one who has been hiding in the shade for 30 years, unweathered, but underdeveloped?

I force myself to think ahead in an attempt to convince my ‘now’ self that I should act on the desires of my ‘future’ self. I conjure my bravest words and grab some pleasant imagery with which to decorate my thoughts. I take deep breaths and long pauses, speak clearly and without emotion. But so far, my ‘now’ self keeps hanging up on my ‘future’ self. I’ll have to try again tomorrow.

]]>http://writing.johannaolson.ca/2016/10/19/67/feed/0Everyone & Mehttp://writing.johannaolson.ca/2016/08/01/everyone-me/
http://writing.johannaolson.ca/2016/08/01/everyone-me/#respondMon, 01 Aug 2016 21:17:53 +0000https://ungenerous-societie.000webhostapp.com/?p=62I recently read the book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling. My sister bought it for me for Christmas because she claims she hears me say that phrase a lot. If she does, it’s because I was a traumatized middle child who had to share friends & cousins with my older sister. But I don’t think I really say that. Anyhow, this Mindy Kaling has really been inspiring me to write. I read the excerpts of her book that are so casual and light hearted; so easy to consume and I think “I can write that like”. Like I’m having a conversation with someone except that I have curated all my jokes and profound questions prior to the listener hearing them. And I don’t let the other person in the conversation respond. That’s basically how my conversations go anyhow. I find it best to just have conversations with myself. This way all the parties involved will truly understand where I’m coming from when I say whatever I say, they’ll laugh at my jokes, and there’s rarely awkward eye contact. Although, sometimes I do practice talking in the mirror.
]]>http://writing.johannaolson.ca/2016/08/01/everyone-me/feed/0This is a Funny Posthttp://writing.johannaolson.ca/2016/07/11/this-is-a-funny-post/
http://writing.johannaolson.ca/2016/07/11/this-is-a-funny-post/#respondMon, 11 Jul 2016 08:01:01 +0000https://ungenerous-societie.000webhostapp.com/?p=65I set out to write this blog post with my only criteria being that I must be funny. So I looked around to my husband to see if he was doing anything unusual or entertaining that I could glean inspiration from. He’s the silly, hilarious one in the relationship who is consistently entertaining. I’m more the reactive, witty one who accidentally says and does funny things and then stares back blankly trying to figure out what part of my comment was the part that made people laugh. Then it becomes one of those moments where a 3 year old repeats the word fuck because they said it once, everyone laughed hilariously, and they expect the same results over and over again. This is awkward because I’m not 3 and no one finds it cute when I say fuck.
]]>http://writing.johannaolson.ca/2016/07/11/this-is-a-funny-post/feed/0Shower.1http://writing.johannaolson.ca/2016/07/07/shower-1/
http://writing.johannaolson.ca/2016/07/07/shower-1/#respondThu, 07 Jul 2016 11:07:29 +0000https://ungenerous-societie.000webhostapp.com/?p=60Every time I take a shower, there’s a moment where I feel as if I’m in a scene from an indie movie. I’m not exactly sure what it is. Perhaps the total mundaneness of taking a shower. Perhaps it’s the poor lighting coupled with the unsexy ambient sound made by my water pressure and the ceiling fan that accrue into neither a dramatically compelling nor humorous moment. Or it’s my long gaze at my 1980s shower facet, which will need to be turned on and off by a screw driver at any moment now. Each time I look down at the thing, I wonder if this will be the day that the water will just continue to run, no matter how many times I turn that plastic dial around. Or perhaps it’s the reality of my body being the naked body in the shower. My imperfect, pale, hairy body being in shot. I mean, only some low-budget, poorly-lit film set would allow this chick to be naked and on screen and I don’t even mean that in a self-deprecating way. I like my body. It’s just not the kind of body that would show up in a Hollywood shower scene. Only a movie written by Lena Dunham or something, but I think she usually keeps the nude scenes for herself.
]]>http://writing.johannaolson.ca/2016/07/07/shower-1/feed/0July 4http://writing.johannaolson.ca/2016/07/04/july-4/
http://writing.johannaolson.ca/2016/07/04/july-4/#respondMon, 04 Jul 2016 03:35:10 +0000https://ungenerous-societie.000webhostapp.com/?p=16Today I celebrated America.

I shot face-wash into my eye, causing it to swell and then seal itself with puss. How ironic that the thing I use to clean my face of impurities turns out to blind me.

Happy Independence Day.

]]>http://writing.johannaolson.ca/2016/07/04/july-4/feed/0C. Dilemmahttp://writing.johannaolson.ca/2016/05/16/c-dilemma/
http://writing.johannaolson.ca/2016/05/16/c-dilemma/#respondMon, 16 May 2016 03:40:53 +0000https://ungenerous-societie.000webhostapp.com/?p=21I am finding it hard to breath because the bones – that I cannot name – are out of line in the back, which I cannot see. I wonder if they would cooperate if I could simply call their names and expose the way they are restricting my living.
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